A community for fans of Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff aka Hawkeye and Black Widow, as individuals and together, and the wider marvel universe.
We track #be_compromised and #clintasha
Comminity also on discord and dreamwidth.
AO3 tag: community: be_compromised
We're a community for fans of Clint Barton AKA Hawkeye and Natasha Romanov AKA Black Widow both as individuals and together, as well as the broader Marvel Universe (MCU, comics, TV, and games), which started on LiveJournal in 2012 and migrated over to Dreamwidth in May 2017. All types of fanwork are welcome
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How to Use Russian Names. Instruction for Marvel Studios
#1. Do not use OFF in Russian surnames.
The use of the suffix -off instead of -ov/ova in Russian surnames is an outdated form of French transliteration.
It was used in the 19th and early 20th centuries by Russian emigrants in Europe and the United States, but is no longer used (yes, for several decades now). So unless the character comes from a family that immigrated due to the Russian Revolution (1917–23) or earlier, giving them -off instead of ov/ova doesn't make sense.
How these Russian surnames actually work: there are a few different suffixes in Russian surnames. The most common are -in/ina (e.g. Kalinin/Kalinina) and -ov/ova (e.g. Smirnov/Smirnova). Why two options for each: in Russian, words change according to gender. So typical Russian surnames (with the aforementioned suffixes) have options for each traditional gender: ov/in for males and ova/ina for females.
Example: Natasha Romanoff shouldn't be a Romanoff at all. She's not from a family of immigrants who came to the United States in 1918. She was born in Russia. Her legal last name on her birth certificate is "Romanova." That's her correct last name.
P.S. No, there is no information that she officially changed her name after defecting from the Red Room. This is simply a gap in the knowledge of people working at Marvel Comics and Marvel Studios. It is long overdue for this error to be corrected. Also note that Yelena's last name is Belova, not Beloff.
The same applies to another victim of this absurdity - Melina Vostokoff. She is Vostokova.
What about other suffixes that we see in Russian characters? They are also used, but less common and usually indicate foreign origin (for example, -ko indicates Ukrainian origin), and some of them are not gender differentiated.
By the way, "Vanko" is a made-up name derived from the Russian name "Ivan" that is overused in the US. It sounds weird to a Russian speaker. Please, don't make up names. At least Google the real ones.
#2. Use short names.
Yelena Belova, Alexei Shostakov... They are always called by their full names: "Yelena" and "Alexei". Even among family and friends.
In the real world it would not be like this. In Eastern Europe, people use shortened versions of names more often than full ones. "Natasha" is a "shortened" version of "Natalia". It is not a different name. The same applies to Yelena. The shortened version of the name is "Lena". This is what her friends and family would call her. Or those who do not respect her very much, like Dreykov. Alexei's shortened name is "Lyosha" (Melina would call him this) or "Lekha" (his male pals would most likely use this version).
By the way, Marvel put the stress in the name "Alexei" incorrectly. It's not AlExei, it's AlexEi.
Here are other variations of the name Natasha that can be used: "Nat", "Nata", "Natalie", "Natashka".
For Yelena: "Lenka", "Lenochka".
But be careful when using versions whose specifics you are not familiar with.
In addition: in official settings among Russians, patronymics are used. For example, Ivan Antonovich Vanko or Natalia Alianovna Romanova (by the way, Alian is also not a real Russian name).
P.S. Natasha's real father's name was Ivan, so it would be more correct to use Natalia Ivanovna Romanova and forget about this terrible "Alian".
#3. Learn surnames other than those of famous people.
It's not only Marvel's issue, but of other companies too (recall Chekov from Star Trek, for example).
Stop using names like Rasputin, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Dostoevsky, Lermontov, etc. for Russian characters in movies. When Russian speakers hear these names, they think they are watching, for example, Russian mafia AU with famous writers of the 19th-20th centuries. It's just ridiculous. These are not common Russian names. Google more common ones, those that gang members might have (but try to avoid the most common, like Ivanov, because they are overused).
And no, changing one letter won't fix it.
#4. Avoid rare and foreign names.
Marvel uses too many names for Russian characters that aren't actually Russian. Often they're made up or so rare that you'd never hear them in the country itself.
I have already mentioned a few made-up names, such as Vanko or Alian. Illyana is another one (the mutant Magik). Names like Melina or Antonia are real, but not of Russian origin and are not commonly used in Russia (instead, there are local versions of them, such as "Antonina").
In conclusion: I don't really understand how these mistakes came about. It's not that there weren't enough Russians in the States to ask how to use elements specific to a particular country in comics and movies. Rather, it's the abundance of indifference and laziness. Remember, it's always better to ask an expert for help than to do simple things wrong and make a fool of yourself.
(3k / warnings for a brief interrogation scene like the one in the avengers / a/n this fic didn’t come out the way I wanted but no use flogging a dead horse so you get what you get lol, 5+1 fic)
If you don’t change direction, you may end up where you were heading.
(5+1)
1/ In which Clint needs his hearing checked.
“Shit, shit, shit,” Natasha grumbles.
“Shit.”
Her phone reads 20% battery and she bolts around the corner.
“Fucking run Clint,” she growls as he stops to look back.
“How much battery does your phone have?”
He looks back and yells.
“None! It got smashed and it’s bricked.”
“Shit,”she says again.
“How much further!?”
“It’s just around the corner,” he yells back.
“Sure,” she mutters, breathing heavily.
“Are they still behind us?”
“I don’t fucking know!”
“Look!” He advises, as she looks back, her eyes rolling as two guards yell in Croatian and demand that they stop.
“Yep, still there, move faster Clint,” she shouts.
“Down here.”
He turns sharply down a small lane, almost making her lose her footing as he bounds forward, his left leg lifts and he jumps to grab onto the emergency ladder pulling it down.
She nods in agreement, helping him pull it down.
He climbs first, then pulls her up, she swings the bag over her shoulder, securing it tightly.
He tries to talk but it gets caught in his throat as he gulps down a breath.
“Nothing… like… a quick escape.”
She scoffs and nods.
“We have to move.”
“This should be the exit to the bakery,” he tells her, moving forward, opening the wire door tentatively.
“This escape, seems to have saved me twice,” he tells her patting the door.
The bakery is small, the entrance appearing almost as they walk through the exit.
Natasha wipes the sweat, and sighs.
“That was too close.”
“No shit,” he replies.
“I said the alarm would go off,” she tells him, hitting his arm annoyed.
“No, you said the alarm was off,” Clint replies.
She frowns.
“You know how we talked about getting your hearing assessed? Yeah, we should totally do that.”
Clint rolls his eyes.
“It’s not my fault that last month in Algeria that the bomb went off almost in my face.”
“No, but the resulting hearing loss was yours to follow up.”
He frowns in annoyance.
“Yeah, yeah.”
He stops and buys a croissant and looks to Natasha who shakes her head, he shrugs and holds up two fingers.
The lady packages them and hands them over.
Clint sighs and pays and motions for Natasha to leave.
“What now?”
She watches as he pulls out one of the croissants and munches.
“Now we get this, to the safe hub,” she replies pointing to her bag.
.
2/ Irish Goodbye
“Do you know what an Irish goodbye is?”
Clint looks at him, pulling down at his tie as he tries to make room for his neck.
“Do you know penguin suits suck?”
Tony cocks his head.
“Oh,” Clint rolls his eyes, “I thought we were just asking rhetorical questions.
They both smile.
“I was just going to tell you that Natasha has left, again.”
Clint looks around and finds he’s likely right. She’s nowhere immediately found and if he’s honest with himself, he probably knows where she’s gone.
“She is one for an Irish goodbye,” Clint muses, leaning back on the large column, spotting Steve talking to Maria, Bruce sitting on the couch, and Pepper talking to man that Clint thinks looks important.
“Why?”
Tony takes a step forward.
“Why wouldn’t she want to hang out with us here?”
Clint shrugs.
“It’s hard, maybe.”
“What’s hard about being at a party?”
Clint doesn’t think he could put it into words the difficulty Natasha might face being at a party with friends versus all the parties that required her to be someone else, do things that she was trained for, and how disconcerting it might be for her. Triggering even.
“Maybe a party is just a party to you, but for her it’s different.”
He frowns.
“Maybe she doesn’t want to hang out with us?”
“Maybe she has better things to do?”
Tony smiles at that.
“Probably.”
Clint shrugs.
“You can ask her tomorrow, we have that mission debrief, remember?”
Tony pulls at his own tie, sighing lightly his face grim, he also looks around, checking on everyone before his gaze rests on Pepper.
“Yeah about that…”
“Nah, you don’t get to bail,” Clint tells him, a hint of a growl in his voice.
Tony gives him a sideways grin.
“Maybe I’ll take a page out of Natasha’s book and come and then leave and not tell anyone.”
Clint scoffs a laugh at that.
“Sure, Tony,” he smiles.
3/ bored, now.
Arms tied behind her back, she can feel the pressure on her shoulders.
Annoyingly, she feels her hair on her face, sticking to the sweat and blood that lay there.
If she can just get her thumb out, she knows that she can free herself.
The way they’ve tied her up it’s not the most escapable but she does feel that they have put effort into it.
“Black widow,” they’d taunted, and she’d laughed in their faces.
Two.
There were two of them.
She rolls her eyes.
This was literally child’s play.
With no change to her facial expression, she uses one hand to dislocate her thumb on the other hand and pushes it through the knot.
“What was your plan?” she taunts,
“Drug me? Tie me up? And then we all wait?”
They look at her from where they are sitting, and she continues, making an effort to not seem like she’s doing anything and they keep their eyes on her face. Or her cleavage.
She didn’t care.
“We’re just sitting here? Why?”
One man scoff and the other leans forward.
“We wait,” he confirms.
“Ah, American,” she confirms.
He looks chagrined.
“CIA? Or something different?”
He looks away at her guess.
She’s almost out of her restraints, but now she’s interested.
“CIA?”
The other man looks pissed.
“Well Mr. CIA, what is it that you want?”
She holds up her hands to show them she’s free, resetting her thumb in front of them.
One of them looks away, and she laughs at his squeamishness.
“If you wanted to talk, you could have just asked.”
He shakes his head and looks to his friend.
“Not us, whore.”
She rolls her eyes and crosses one leg over the other.
“Then who?”
She enunciates the words slowly, in mocking.
One stands coming to far into her personal space.
Annoyed, she punches him in the nuts, he keeps over and she follows it with a chop to the throat, and swift punch to his carotid artery.
He’s out before he hits the ground.
“I’m bored of this,” she announces to the man, who now stands staring at his friend.
“They want to talk to you about what you learned in Venezuela.”
His voice has the edge of hysteria.
Clearly, these men are not at the hop of any sort of hierarchy.
Whoever they were waiting for she doesn’t particularly want to stick around for.
“I’m bored of this,” she repeats.
“Move.”
He shakes his head, looking to the door.
“He’ll be here soon,” the man starts, his voice calmer.
Natasha is standing now.
“Talk to Director Fury,” she taunts.
“He can tell you what…”
The door opens and a man in a suit walks through it.
“Your reputation precedes you,” he says to her.
His voice is low, an edge to it she doesn’t like.
There is a window behind her, they’re only on the first floor. He’s now blocking the door, and for some reason, she thinks he’d be harder to take down than two of the others in front of her.
“Yours doesn’t,” she replies.
He looks down at the man lying prostate between them.
“He called me a whore,” she states, kicking him again.
It’s met with a groan, and she takes a step back.
He’s six foot five at least.
He steps forward.
“Your supposed to tied up, but I suppose we can talk like this.”
She shrugs.
“You can call me Mr. Black. I represent a subsection of the CIA. We need your information of which I know you have from your recent mission in Venezuela,” he starts.
“It’s been cleared with your director.”
She scoffs.
“Really?”
He smiles.
It’s not kind.
“Really,” he lies.
Another step back.
“What’s the mission name?”
“Blackfriar.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
Natasha feels the stir of wrongness and the cage closing in. He’s correct, and only four people know that information.
“Why do you want to know?”
“We have our reasons.”
There’s a mole in shield, feeding information to the CIA. She’s not sticking around anyway, to find out if tying her up and calling her names is all they’ll do for information.
If she gives them the intel, she could be easily framed. And who would they believe? Someone in shield or her, a defective KGB operative?
“Okay,” she smirks.
“Okay,” he replies.
Natasha raises her hands in surrender and runs and jumps out the glass window.
4/ with friends like these, who needs enemies?
“Pepper!!”
Natasha sees her friend standing in the middle of the hall, the look on her face one of shock.
“Pepper!! Run!”
Finally, her voice seems to break through the haze and she crumples to the floor, the secondary explosion hitting the café as Natasha sprints toward her friend.
“Get up!” she shouts, reaching her and pulling her arm.
“Come on!”
She drags her forward, the heat and debris around them, and the shouting of others breaking through.
“Pepper, are you hurt?!”
There’s blood on Natasha’s hand but she can’t tell if it’s her own or Peppers.
Angrily, she pulls them forward, finding a cover that seems to be safer.
Her comms are shot, but she doesn’t want to take them out of her ear just in case To y can get them up and running again.
The electromagnetic pulse had hit first, then the first bomb, she can’t believe they thought it would be safe for Pepper to come.
“I’m okay,” she hears, but it comes a second after she’s already started to vigorously pat down the shorter woman, checking for injuries.
“I’m okay, Nat, promise,” she tries to give a smile, but it comes out watery.
“We need to go,” Natasha replies, trying to give her a smile back, “the others will be waiting.”
“Tony?” Pepper asks, her voice to hopeful.
“I’m sure,” Natasha nods.
In her heart she’s not though, she’s worried, about Tony; Steve and Clint.
Her heart clenches.
Rendezvous point was the back of the building, so it’s where she leads Pepper. They don’t talk.
Both lost in their thoughts.
Her heart beats fast as she sees Clint first; then Tony.
Pepper runs fast and he runs toward her.
“Pep!”
“I’m okay,” she preempts.
Clint is more guarded, staring at Natasha, taking her all in, knowing she won’t ever say how she really is in front of people.
All he has is clues.
She does the same.
“I’m okay,” he mouthes.
She nods, lips pursed.
“Steve?”
Both Tony and Clint shake their heads.
“We don’t know, we lost him after the second explosion. We think he tried to save as many civilians as he could, but…”
She doesn’t respond.
She saw the casualties.
“Hydra?”
Tony nods.
“We think so.”
“What now?”
Clint steps forward, and motions to the exits.
“We wait? Or leave?”
“We need to finish this,” Tony starts, “but you can’t stay.”
Pepper doesn’t even protest.
“I can help,” she tells them, “but I need a computer.”
“You can find Steve?”
She shakes her head.
“No, but I can run interference and get onto my contacts in Berlin.”
Clint shrugs, “I can get you into a building.”
Tony motions to Natasha’s ears.
“Give me your comms.”
She does without asking.
“Give me twenty minutes,” he asks.
She looks from Tony to Clint to Pepper.
“I’ll be back,” she nods to all of them.
Clint looks at her appalled.
“No.”
“Twenty minutes,” she nods to Tony. “If I’m not back, I’m either dead, or captured.”
Clint rolls his eyes.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“If Steve is out there, injured or needs some help, I’ll find him, bring him back, or come back and get you all.”
Tony grunts.
“Fine. Twenty minutes but you come back.”
He takes his analogue watch off and sets a timer.
“Twenty minutes,” Clint reiterates.
“You have your own mission,” she grins.
He looks at her seriously.
“Be careful.”
She nods once and takes off back into the fray.
5/ +1
Clint watches her closely. The way she talks to Steve and then to Pepper, the smile she wears and the gentle tuck of hair behind her ear.
He can see the slight bruise on her cheek, even though he knows she’s covered it in make up, and he’s not sure if it’s just because he knows it’s there that he can see it.
She glances at him.
Smiles.
It’s all fake.
There’s something she’s not telling him. Something on her mind, and despite his gentle prodding, she’s not giving him anything.
He heads to the kitchen and finds Tony staring into the fridge.
“Hungry?” he asks.
Tony nods, not looking his way.
“I just don’t want any more Doritos. Maybe something fresh would be better.”
Clint laughs at that.
“What’s in there?”
Tony closes the door.
“Nothing.”
Clint follows him to the table. In the corner of his eye he sees Natasha heading for the door; and he starts upright again.
“Umm, I’ll be back in a minute.”
He rounds on her; finding her standing at the lift, moving from foot to foot, uncharacteristically fidgeting.
“Nat?”
She stops.
Turns to face him and waits.
“You’re leaving?”
It takes a moment for her to reply, but he’s better at waiting than her.
The sniper in him watches all her tells.
The way she looks to him, and to their friends behind him.
The lift pulls up and dings, but neither of them move.
“You don’t… want to stay?”
She bites her lip.
“I… I’m attached to them. I… they’re my… friends and I think, Clint…”
She sighs. The flight closes and she presses the button to open it again.
“I’ll let them down. I’m not good. They’re better off, better if I have a distance and they’re just friends and I’m just me, over here.”
He stares.
“What?”
It’s said with disbelief but it comes out as harsh. The growl that follows he can’t stop, because it’s so stupid.
“You’re wrong.”
She flinches.
“I’m not made for people. You know that. I need to leave.”
He steps forward, the frown still on his face as he contemplates how to convince her she’s an idiot.
“TONY.”
He yells loud and it draws the attention of everyone.
Natasha stares.
“What are you doing?” She hisses.
“TONY!” He yells again.
Everyone comes.
She stares wide eyes and realises what he’s doing.
Steve arrives first, then Tony and Pepper.
“Tell them,” he challenges.
“Tell them what you told me.”
Natasha’s face flashes with fury and if Clint didn’t know her, he’d be worried.
“Tell us what, Nat?” Steve asks gently.
She shakes her head, and the lift dings.
Clint moves behind her.
“No,” he whispers for her to hear.
“You’d never believe me, so tell them, and let them know what you’re thinking.”
“Tell us, Nat,” Pepper tries, “maybe we can help? Maria can come if you need back up too?”
Natasha softens, always softens when Pepper is around.
Tony cocks his head.
“No more Irish goodbyes, Nat,” he surmises.
Clint nods imperceptibly at him.
“They're your friends, ask them if they think they’d be better off with you giving them distance, of being on the outer circle and not being their friend.”
Steve looks shocked.
“You believe that?”
Natasha doesn’t break eye contact with Clint.
He knows she won’t forgive this easily.
But maybe it’s worth it.
“You can’t believe that, Nat,” Pepper starts.
“You’re the only person… you’re the only one that actually gets what I mean when I rant about stark industries, or what about when we go walking on Friday mornings? Does it mean you don’t want to?”
She looks like she’s going to cry and Natasha immediately steps forward to help.
“No? I want to I just…”
“You don’t want to build the suits with me anymore?”
Tony fakes a sad face but the question is real.
“What about sparring with me?”
Clint knows they’re just as good as him at emotional blackmail.
And for that he’s thankful.
“It’s not what I mean,” she tries.
“I just.. I’m not who you think.”
He rolls his eyes.
“The black widow? You think you’re gonna kills us? We trust you. You’re not the scary Russian you think you are.”
She looks at him.
He waits to see her next move and it’s Pepper that takes her hand.
“Come on,” she offers.
“Stay.”
He hates that staying for her is the difficult thing. She doesn’t believe that this is her family, and they would go to the ends of the earth for her. He knows it’s a battle, and that he’ll have this conversation again and again, and sometimes she might believe him, and sometimes she won’t.
Maybe now it’s enough that she didn’t get on the lift, that Tony knows he’s stopping her from going. That Steve might talk to her when they sparring and that Maria will hear of this and try to dissuade her from running from social situations.
He’ll see.
He’ll watch as he always does.
He’ll convince her one day that she’s home and it’s okay to stay.
yay first post on tumblr!! i entirely made this account for nat and my little blackhill universe im finally sharing with the world yippee have some old sketches
(900words, warnings for talk of childhood neglect. Clint centric - but Clintasha. A/N - this was supposed to be a two parter with a story of both Clint and Natasha’s childhood with a kind adult, but alas, I ran out of time. So we only get Clint’s side. Maybe one day I’ll write Nats)
-
It’s a hard knock life.
“There was a woman,” Clint starts.
Natasha looks up from her phone, and notices his eyes dark.
“In my old neighborhood. I got home from school at 3 and she was always watering her plants.”
She feels it’s not the time to say anything but stares at him with rapt attention.
“It’s just occurred to me, that she was watching me come home everyday.”
He pauses on the thought.
“I’d be alone. I’d get home alone, and she’d… always be there, watering her plants, watching me get off the bus, wave and then, she’d go inside when I was.”
He stares at nothing and thinks.
“She was watching for me.”
Natasha turns to face him.
The television breaks the quiet but he’s thoughtful still.
She’s not sure what to say.
“Her name was Vera,” he offers.
She waits.
He turns to face her after a moment.
A sad smile is returned and she grabs his hand to give it a squeeze.
“Sometimes it’s the little things that people do for us that we don’t even recognise them at the time,” she thinks out loud.
He turns his attention back to the television, the show flashing brightly, casting light on their faces.
“Yeah, I think you’re right,” he replies.
She lets his hand go, and picks her phone up again.
“Would you ever go looking for her?”
Clint doesn’t answer.
She takes it as a no.
Moments pass and the tv drolls on.
He can’t stop thinking of her.
Always watering her plants, and then going back inside when he got home. Never interfering but always a kind face. A hello in the morning and when he arrived, sometimes a worried face.
He wonders if she ever did anything for his mum.
He never saw them together, but perhaps there was danger in that, given his father.
Would he look for her?
He grabs his phone, opens a game, trying to put it out of his mind.
He doesn’t need this.
It only takes a second before he has a browser open, searching her name. Her first name anyway, last known location.
It takes him down a rabbit hole.
He opens a database.
Then another.
It takes him five minutes.
“She’s dead,” he announces to Natasha.
He hears her sigh.
“I’m sorry,” she replies.
“Yeah.”
Fatigue hits him and he puts his phone on charge, kisses Natasha and rolls over, ready for sleep.
“Are you okay?” she asks quietly, to his turned back.
He’s not sure.
“Yeah,” he answers.
“Night, Nat,”
He feels her hand on the small of his back.
Reassuring, consistent.
“Night Clint.”
.
“She had a daughter,” Clint tells her the next night.
He was going to hold onto the information, thought about burying it, and leaving it alone.
It had only been a thought; a small part of his childhood.
He’s not sure why he was perseverating on it so much.
She made she he got home, nothing more.
But it meant something, even if he only realised it twenty years later.
He wanted to repay the favour, the kindness, whatever it was.
Natasha looks over, waiting for him to continue.
It takes a moment.
But for him she could wait all night.
“They live in Alaska now.”
She smiles.
“So not the most inaccessible place.”
“No,” he muses.
“What do you want to do?”
He shrugs.
“I don’t know.”
She leaves him in his silence. This time, it’s her that rests her head on his chest.
“We can visit, or send something like money? We can do nothing, or visit her grave?”
She closes her eyes.
“Think about it,” she yawns.
He sighs heavily.
“Yeah.”
“Night Clint,” she whispers.
“Night Nat,” he replies.
.
“I’ve sent them money,” he announces at dinner.
She pauses on her fried rice and nods.
“Under what guise?”
He shrugs.
“I just sent cash, and said that it was from a friend. Actually I sent a note to say that her mother was a good woman.”
Natasha continues to eat, and nods at the gesture.
“It sounds like she was.”
“It took me so long to figure that out,” he tells her quietly.
She snorts at him.
“How much of your childhood do you actually remember?”
Clint looks up, and gets her point straight away.
“Yeah, okay, hardly any of the small things. Other kids had good memories and fun and I had…”
He shrugs, letting the memories peter out.
“Sometimes, probably it will just be like this. Something happens and something will come back to you, and we cope with it then, good or bad. Just like we do with mine.”
He looks at her then.
The worry and reassurance.
“Yeah. Yes. It’s what we do.”
She eats and motions for him to do the same.
“It’s what we do.”
He sighs heavily, remembering her watering can.
Thanks Vera, he thinks and looks down at his own dinner.
“Thanks Nat,” he offers.
She waves it off.
“Hopefully you’ll get some sleep tonight,” she smiles.
They were right, by the way. You have to dig yourself out of the grave over and over again.
.
Life feels heavy.
She still gets up, puts on her uniform, goes out and saves people; mostly from themselves. Follows the same routine, goes out with the others. Smiles. Laughs.
But.
It feels hollow.
In the moment, she copes.
In the moment, she enjoys herself.
But outside of that? Natasha reminds herself to breathe, to take a deep breath and get off the couch, move through the motions of living.
She’s well practiced at it.
It leaves her breathless and despondent but only when she’s alone.
“Somethings wrong,” she whispers to herself before bed.
Survival often feels like forcing herself to take a breath.
.
Unsurprisingly it’s Clint to pull her up on it.
“Are you okay?” he asks in the morning, handing her a coffee.
She nods, non-committal, and tries for a smile.
Fake enough for him to drop it.
She gets on with the day, paperwork, a meeting. Lunch with Maria.
All relatively easy things.
She manages the gym, stretches and listens to the same music.
Goes home, watches the same shows.
The comfort of it lulling her into relaxing.
The day is not a bad one.
The week is good.
She’s lived through so much worse.
She doesn’t know why she feels so heavy.
Natasha sleeps, as she always does.
No nightmares push past the veil.
She wakes and can’t stop thinking. It’s worse than having a nightmare wake her.
Thoughts go a mile a minute, continual, pressing, on things she’s done and has yet to do.
Showering helps, and routines. Exercise.
She’s fighting a losing battle.
Still Clint asks.
A cock to his head and frown.
“Are you okay?”
She nods.
Smiles.
He doesn’t return either.
Hands her a coffee and sighs.
“It’s okay you know, to not be okay. You don’t have to say you’re fine when you’re not.”
She snorts.
“Are you okay?” she replies.
“Some days,” he smiles.
Natasha likes that.
“Some days,” she repeats.
He walks with her to the gym, and points to the weights.
They move in ease of tandem.
“On the days you don’t?” he presses.
“On the days I don’t…” Natasha starts, laying down on the bench and testing the bars weight in her hand.
She considers lying.
Considers the question too.
“On the days that I don’t, I remember to breathe. I force myself to go through the motions of living.”
She pushes the weight off her body and pulls it closer again.
He stands behind her watching to make sure she can mange it.
“What else?”
“It’s not enough?”
“Maybe?”
She continues to push it up and down.
“I eat sweet things.”
He smiles.
“Yeah. Me too.”
She laughs.
“Who do you think taught me?”
Natasha finishes her set and they swap, reloading the bar with heavier weights.
“Something fizzy, sometimes.”
“Hard moments, doesn’t mean I get to write off the day.”
“No,” Clint agrees. “It doesn’t.”
He grunts in effort.
“It’ll pass,” she tells him.
“I think in moments like this, where there’s no crisis, no world ending crisis to deal with, it feels like I’m lost. And it spirals.”
She’s shocked at her own truths.
“Sometimes I worry I’m going to hurt someone. Hurt myself.”
It’s her greatest fear.
She doesn’t know why she’s saying it out loud.
“You won’t.”
Clint’s confidence makes her look down.
“How do you know?”
He grunts and does one more bench press, before sitting up and looking at her.
“Because I know you. You won’t because you know yourself better too. You wouldn’t be here, you wouldn’t have strategies to ground yourself.”
Natasha shrugs.
She doesn’t quite believe that.
“I get scared, Clint.”
He voice shakes and she pulls weights off the bar to change it over.
He’s quiet.
She shakes it off, feeling slightly better at voicing the things that scare her the most.
The movement helps.
Maybe she can add that in too.
Movement.
“We all do, Nat. Maybe not of the same thing. But the fear is there.”
She shrugs and shakes it off.
“I’m okay Clint. They’re just moments and I need to remember that overall.”
She lays down and starts.
They don’t talk as they both finish their reps. They break away for cardio and reconnect to stretch and cool down.
“Maybe you should talk Barnett again,” he suggests.
She pauses mid stretch.
“Yeah, I will. I’m in Croatia for the next three weeks but I’ve booked in after that.”
Clint winces as he bends to touch his toes.
“Good.”
Sighing, Natasha stands.
“I’m okay Clint,” she confirms, for both him and herself. “Just not all the time.”
He laughs at that.
“None of us are, Nat. But if the sinking feeling is weighing us down, then sometimes we need some outside help.”
Spontaneously, she hugs him.
“I’ll see you in three weeks.”
He stands back and pulls her in for another hug.
“We’ve been through some pretty bad stuff, but we always land back on our feet,” he whispers.
She squeezes a little tighter, and lets him go.
“I’ll see you in three weeks,” she repeats.
.
It helps.
Work helps.
The sweetness of food.
The difference in location.
Breathing in, and out.
Forcing stillness when she can’t stop thinking.
Grounding herself to the here and now.
She finds that the way she treats herself matters.
Eating, drinking, sleeping.
It helps.
Barnett stares at her, her glasses on the tip of her nose as Natasha explains like she did to Clint, almost a month ago.
Things feel better now than they did then.
Not the best, but better.
“Why?” Asks the psychologist.
She shrugs.
“No, think about it. Why?”
Natasha frowns at the challenge.
“I don’t know.”
Barnett shakes her own head in response.
“I think you do, take ownership of it; Natasha.”
She’s right.
Natasha does know, but feels it’s the wrong answer.
“I did what I could.”
Barnett doesn’t answer.
Waits.
Natasha doesn’t like the silence. The expectation that comes from it.
“I used the strategies I have?”
It’s closer.
Barnett writes something and hands it over.
Natasha nods at the words written.
She folds it carefully.
“Natasha, we’ve known each other for a while now. I hope you know that strength isn’t only in our muscles. It’s in our minds too. Sometimes we can’t think it way out of things. Sometimes we have to ride through the moment. They don’t last. It might feel like they do, and often it’s easier for me to sit and preach that regulation is a series of tasks. It’s not. It’s working through the moments, finding what works. Sometimes we are good at it, sometimes not so much.”
Barnett waits, and Natasha meets her eyes.
“Keep going,” she assures.
She proceeds to run through checks, and Natasha answers honestly.
When the session ends she feels lighter, almost impossibly so.
Clint meets her at her apartment and like after every therapy session they head to the local burger place.
“Are you okay?” he asks, tentatively after ordering.
